System Design Basics, Controlled Forms, and That "Everything is an Object" Thing

Short but solid session today. A bit of system design thinking, a proper look at controlled state in React forms, and one of those JavaScript facts that sounds simple but has a lot hiding underneath it. System Design — Start With the Requirements Before writing a single line of code on any real project, two things need to be figured out first: Functional Requirements — what the product does. These are your features, your MVP. What's the bare minimum that makes this thing actually usable? Strip everything down to the core and build that first. Non-Functional Requirements — how the product performs. Things like speed, scalability, security, availability. A feature can work perfectly and still fail here — imagine a login system that works but takes 8 seconds to respond. Getting clear on both of these before touching the keyboard saves a lot of painful refactoring later. Controlled State in React Forms A controlled component means React is the single source of truth for your input's value